Posted on 23 June 2015, 13:44

There is, I think, an urgent need for churches, church schools, theological colleges, and other educational institutions, to acknowledge the huge body of records of trustworthy experiences relating to the spiritual dimension, the consistent descriptions of its nature, and to teach about things spiritual with this in mind.

To find out what has been written, we have only to put search words into Google. Having done this I find one conservative Christian website, where the focus seems to be on acquiring either demonic or divine power. “A common and ultimately dangerous error that Christian practitioners in the paranormal field make is that of emphasizing and focusing on spiritual power first. A clear, committed experiential relationship with Christ must always come first.” But it is not acquiring power that it’s all about. The question is, in the light of the deeper human experiences studied in psychic research and in the lives of the mystics, what is the nature of the reality in which spiritual, psychic, and creative events occur? How can we describe them? Can the study of these experiences help us to distinguish between the gold and the dross, between the real and the phoney in reported experiences whether they are classified as personal, or religious? Can they help us distinguish between the gold and the dross in the sacred scriptures of various religions?

Can there not be open-minded heuristic study and work from there?

Of course there is a well-known contributor to this field, the psychologist Carl Jung. His major and pioneering studies have indeed influenced many Christian thinkers. The reservation I have, is that his writings are so many, and so challenging to read, that for our purposes it is better to focus more on experiences that many people will recognise, simpler trustworthy stories that are reported in psychic journals, or books published by such firms as White Crow.

A recently published book, Four philosophical Anglicans Allan P.F. Sell, looks promising, but I haven’t had the opportunity to read it yet.

Why does there appear to be such a dearth of comparison of these personal experiences in an open-minded way with experiences described in holy books? By “open-minded” I am wishing to avoid using such stories in support of some unchallengeable church doctrine?

There is fear of offending those who have fixed ideas based on their understanding of some holy book, and the condescending contempt of those who, refusing to study these records, refuse point blank to entertain even the idea that there could be a realm of spirit. Those who justify their refusal by saying that “Science teaches this or that,” should be reminded that science is a set of tools for investigation, that are used by people of all races and beliefs, and is an ongoing process. Science in itself does not “teach”.

There is however no rational reason to dismiss that body of first hand evidence, and if truth is to prevail, we should not be cowardly, but draw from this body of personal testimony, in our teaching, preaching, and theological thinking. In this way, what is good and true in our holy books, will be felt to be so, and with greater faith and conviction, and what is not so, can be set to one side.

It would be wonderful if open-minded theologians could work together to produce experience-based theology, and similarly with teachers and their teaching.

Where could such open-minded people get their information, and start?

There is of course a huge literature, but from the academic side, I would recommend the landmark Irreducible Mind, Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, 2006. Kelly and Kelly et al.

There is Victor Zammit’s A lawyer presents the evidence for the afterlife. This is a must-read for the general reader.

There is a similar book by R. Craig Hogan: Your Eternal Self, 2008

Freely quoting from his book, I have a multiple lesson Power Point teaching series, with links to videos, websites and excerpts from his text. I am happy to forward the material via DropBox for consideration. My email address is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

To give an idea of Hogan’s approach, here are some of the main headings from the first page of his table of contents:

“Where are you? Science doesn’t know where you are.
“Many scientists are suggesting that your Mind is not in your Brain.
“The Brain doesn’t have the capacity to hold the Mind or Memories.
“People can see, hear, smell, taste and touch without using the brain.
“Evidence that we know information without using the brain..”..etc

Another main heading is “What are you?” and “What is your relationship to other people?”, “What is the relationship of your Eternal self to other people?” ,“What is the relationship of your Eternal self to the Physical Realm?”,

“What is spirituality?”,”How do you grow spiritually?”

This is just a sample. There are many pages in the index alone.

There are many exciting topics such as crop circles, UFOs and the like, that Hogan does not mention. These phenomena may or may not be real. But Hogan concentrates on the basic evidence upon which we may build a framework of understandings into which we can fit our spiritual experiences, and also relate them to our corporate life perhaps in a church congregation.

I was glad to read that Pope Francis has just issued an encyclical “Laudato si” on the environment, in which he stresses repeatedly that “everyone and everything is interconnected, to God, to creation and to fellow human beings.” Eventually the survival of the human race may depend on this realisation.

This truth that all is interconnected with all else, must underlie all our thinking. It is this truth that underlies all psychic experiences, all experiences of spirit that makes prayer possible, and speaks of the relationship of the spiritual dimension to the physical. It is this truth that must inform our conception of the Source of all things that we call God.

There may already be many such theologians and teachers, and if so, I would like to hear about them, so that they can be mentioned in my journal, The Ground of Faith. I have in mind the context of churches and schools in particular. There is of course, a huge interest in the supernatural, and if information were to come from unexpected sources such as theologians and teachers, the strangeness might soon disappear. In view of some rubbish appearing on the internet, it would be good to have information that was sober and trustworthy.

That would be one unexpected basis for discussion of spirituality. Other approaches could be poetry. I have just come from an evening of meditation on poetry by Wordsworth and also Sylvia Plath. That opened some new horizons for those present in church.

As a kind of footnote I would like to suggest that perhaps the best way to initiate investigate exploration about Spirit, would be to ask people about their own experiences that seem to point to a reality other than the see-touch and measure, that is experienced by the senses.

As another footnote we can agree that spirituality is rightly the obsession of much of humankind. In this blog however I am focusing on the churches and schools, the traditional vehicles for the passing on of Western culture.

They are vehicles for community building, transmitting the spiritual languages provided by Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and more. As with spoken languages, spiritual languages can be translated to each other, but with insight and sometimes difficulty. But they cannot be dispensed with.

That too will be a challenge, if courses such as envisaged here are to be constructed, how to interpret between the languages.

I would be so glad to hear from any who prepare such courses, and use them in a religious or educational context. Just contact me at the email address listed above.

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.
His latest book, Into the Wider Dream: Synchronicity in the Witness Box is published by White Crow Books.